Chefs on the grill

1Ben Russell, Aria, BrisbaneI love cuttlefish on the barbie. With some chorizo sausage,
lemon juice and chopped parsley it rocks. Serve it with parmesan
croûtons if you want to get really fancy.

When Spanish mackerel is around I love to simply grill a piece
along with some wedges of fennel and serve it with some toasted
almonds, capers and a splash of verjuice. And I'll be taking
a piece of pork neck, brining it overnight in cider, golden
syrup and a little salt, cooking it slowly for a few hours on the
barbie and serving it with some char-grilled apples and rocket
leaves.

2Peter Doyle, Est, SydneyI'll be grilling red and yellow capsicums, removing their
skins, mixing them with Niçoise olives and olive oil and serving
them with grilled pork and fennel sausages drizzled with
salmoriglio.

3Greg Malouf, MoMo, MelbourneI have an old Turkish favourite in mind: lamb's liver skewered
with sumac and Turkish black chilli, grilled then wrapped in Arabic
bread with parsley and lemon. I'll also be cooking mushrooms in
foil with shankleesh cheese and spring onions, or fresh baby
octopus on the grill with ras el hanout spice mix and garlic
paste.

4Brigitte Hafner, Gertrude Street Enoteca,
MelbourneI do a lot of seafood in summer, such as squid marinated in
kecap manis and fish sauce. Grill the squid and toss it with a
green papaya and mint salad. Oily fish such as kingfish or red
mullet is perfect char-grilled with a paste of fresh green chilli,
tomato and coriander. Or marinate chicken in ground white pepper
and coriander seeds, grill it, toss it in a salad of Chinese
cabbage and dress it with sesame oil and soy.

5Robert Marchetti, Icebergs Dining Room and Bar,
SydneyThis year I'm making double-smoked bacon out of my Berkshire
pigs. I'll be grilling rashers that are a bit more than an inch
thick over wood coals and eating them with lots of hot mustard.
Yum! For dessert it'll be leftover panettone, sliced and grilled
till the butter melts, dusted with icing sugar and dunked in an
Espresso Martini. Naughty! (And then at the end of January I'll be
spending my afternoons cleaning all the burnt sugar and blackened
bacon fat from the barbie to work off the kilos I've put on.)

6Neil Perry, Rockpool group, Sydney and
MelbourneGrill chicken legs and king prawns and toss together with
spring onion and coriander for an awesome salad. Make a spicy
dressing of chilli oil, sesame paste, sesame seeds and oil, soy,
black vinegar, a touch of sugar, ginger and garlic. Toss the lot
together and serve. Delicious.

And I can't keep my favourite fish off the grill this summer.
Gently grill some Coorong yelloweye mullet fillets, and pound
together Chinese black olives, black beans and salted radish,
adding oil and rice vinegar, then drizzle it over the fish.
Yum.

7Mark Best, Marque, SydneyCut the backbone out of the best chook you can afford, flatten
the bird out and soak it for 12 hours in brine (about five per cent
brown sugar and five per cent salt). Fire up the Weber with
hardwood charcoal and grill the chook bone-side down for 40
minutes, and prepare to weep. I also shuck extra-large green-lip
abalone, season them with Murray River salt, pepper and licorice
root, wrap them in wakame and then chill them for 24 hours. I take
them out of the fridge, throw them on the barbie for five a side,
then slice 'em thin and get 'em in.

I'll also be filleting a spanking fresh bonito and grilling each
quarter skin-side down. Slice it and serve with freshly pickled
ginger and Tasmanian wasabi root.

8Shannon Bennett, Vue de Monde, MelbourneI love merguez sausage meat taken out of its casing and mixed
with caramelised onions, tomato sauce and Dijon mustard, then
wrapped in pizza dough like a pasty. If you've got the luxury,
throw them into a woodfired oven. But failing that, you can put
them onto a flat plate in a Weber and cook them like gyoza. Cheese
is optional.

If I'm cooking for large numbers, doing things en papillote (aka
cooked in a tinfoil pouch) is a definite winner. Try a combination
of fresh prawns and fish with shaved fennel herbs, lemon juice and
butter.

I like broccoli and cauliflower stems cut lengthways so they
look like profiles of trees, cooked over charcoal for two minutes
on each side then doused in loads of lemon dressing and chopped
tarragon to serve as a side with poultry or game - especially squab
pigeon.

9Adriano Zumbo, pâtissier, SydneyI'll be soaking long slices of fresh pineapple in light palm
sugar and lime juice and char-grilling them on the barbie. Try
serving them on a fresh coriander purée with young coconut sorbet
and shaved frozen mango drizzled lightly with chilli oil.

I'm into boiling sweetcorn in the husk with a few saffron
threads then pulling off the husk and char-grilling the corn on a
hot barbie and basting it with vanilla butter till it's toasty,
then seasoning it with salt and pepper.

I love to butterfly a leg of lamb, marinate it in lemon and salt
for a few hours, barbecue it medium-rare and dish it up to friends
with a fresh simple tomato, herb and feta salad.

11Brent Savage, Bentley Restaurant & Bar,
SydneyFor me, barbies are all about the seafood: charred octopus with
almond skordalia and fried basil or grilled whole sardines on
grilled bread with yoghurt, dill and cucumber. And, of course,
there's always grilled pimientos de Padrón deglazed with sherry and
garlic for the vegevores.

12Aaron Turner, Loam,
DrysdaleI love garfish barbecued whole and served with a freekah,
parsley and lemon salad. Or cuttlefish on the char-grill in loads
of fresh chilli, served in a fresh baguette smothered with
aïoli.

For a summer barbie, nothing beats whole squab marinated in
black vinegar, ginger and garlic slowly grilled over smoking olive
wood. I'll also be tossing cuttlefish on the char-grill in loads of
fresh chilli, to serve in a fresh baguette smothered with aïoli.
Try flash-fried abalone with a chopped salad of cucumber, tomato
and garden herbs. Or charred young asparagus with coddled egg,
capers and anchovies: easy. And grilled cantaloupe, ricotta and
wild fennel makes a fantastic summer salad.

13Jowett Yu, Ms G's, SydneyThis summer I'll be grilling thin slices of ox tongue and
serving them with wedges of lemon and a Korean dipping sauce of
sesame oil, pepper and salt.

14Peter Gilmore, Quay, SydneyI'll be cooking a lot of whole fish over the summer: I encase
them in rock salt and wakame, wrap the lot in foil, and cook them
on the barbie.

I'm also planning on building a wood-fired pizza oven in the
back yard so I don't have to travel too far for a good
Margherita.

16Ayhan
Erkoc, Celsius, AdelaideGrill some yabbies and cucumber (yes, cucumber) and plate them
up with a salad of radish and parsley. For something sweet
afterwards, try grilling some fresh apricots; slice them and make a
salad with shavings of halva, pistachios and top it all with
yoghurt sorbet.

Slow-roast a lamb leg in the Weber and then carve it up with
potatoes cooked in the coals and a red onion and sumac salad.

17Tony Tan, Unlimited Cuisine Company,
MelbourneHow about smoky eggplant laced with crushed sesame seeds, a
smear of gochujang (the Korean chilli paste) and lime teamed with a
slab of Chinese-style roast pork with crackling? And, if you fancy,
you can wrap them in lettuce, rice paper or bread.

I'll also be smothering a whole snapper with coconut, chopped
tomato, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin and coriander seeds and
grilling it over banana leaves. Any table salad, especially tomato,
pineapple chunks and mint, with this dish is delish.

I love a slab of seriously aged steak salted and grilled over
vine cuttings, served with pimentos de Padrón and tempranillo so I
can fantasise I'm back at Etxebarri.

This summer, I'm grilling bug tails drenched in tamarind, palm
sugar and spring onion oil and serving them with chunks of mango
and lime. Another good one for the grill is rum-spiked mango cheeks
and toasted coconut ice cream.

18Dan Hunter, Royal Mail Hotel, DunkeldOut our way it's hard to beat a flank of Greenvale Homestead
beef. I go with sesame oil, soy, mirin, a bit of brown sugar,
chopped spring onion, loads of garlic, grated radish and a squeeze
of lemon and lime. Before you barbecue the meat, let it sit at room
temperature for a few hours to absorb the marinade.

Fish-wise, when the boys from Robe are driving through Dunkeld
on their way to drop southern rock lobsters at Tullamarine we
occasionally get one. These are split lengthways, rubbed with a
mixture of olive oil, cider vinegar, garlic and parsley and cooked
through on the flesh. We usually drown them again in the refrito
before serving.

I'm doing summer vegetables from the growers' market: grill
whole red capsicum and eggplant, peel them and then dress and eat
them while they're still warm. Skewers are great too - wrap
prosciutto around cherry tomatoes and alternate them with
snowpeas.

22Andrew McConnell, Cutler & Co and Cumulus Inc,
MelbourneOrder a kilo of chicken wings from your butcher - ask for the
middle section only (no wing tip, no little attachment joint) - and
put these in a freezer bag along with a tablespoon of vegetable oil
and sweet soy, two teaspoons of salt, a teaspoon of white pepper
and some smashed coriander roots if you have them. Massage the
wings through the bag, coating each piece well, then suck the air
out of the bag and tie it off with a double knot. Leave it for a
few hours to marinate before placing it in a steamer, bag and all.
Steam for an hour and a half, then put it in the fridge to cool
until you're ready to grill (this can all be done the day before).
Grill the wings over a low heat until they're golden-caramel and
crisp; the meat should fall off the bone. If you can't be bothered
steaming the chicken wings, by all means skip this step - they're
almost as delicious simply marinated and grilled.

23Danny Russo, The Italian Kitchen & Bar,
SydneyComing from an Italian family there's always tonnes of
panettone left over from Christmas, so I like to make a grilled
panettone sandwich. Char-grill some halved ripe figs until they're
caramelised and slip them between slices of lightly grilled
panettone with a good serve of vanilla gelato. Then say hello to
the gym in the new year.

Or how about ripe figs cut in half and wrapped up in fatty
pancetta and grilled on the flat plate until the pancetta starts to
crisp and then place on a platter with some fresh radicchio and
drizzle with truffled honey? Or fresh yabbies split in half and
marinated with lemon zest and fresh herbs, grilled and served with
grilled peach and watercress salad with Trebbiano dressing and a
splash of oil? A great summer dish.

Ripe peaches cut into wedges and drowned in chilled red wine are
always a barbie favourite of mine. Or you could marinate pork spare
ribs with fennel seeds, cumin, garlic, oil and lots of love for 24
hours, then slow-cook them on the barbie and serve them with a
fennel and rocket salad for something really finger-lickin'
good.

24Christopher Whitehead, Mad Cow, SydneyI'll be marinating flat-iron steak (oyster blade with the sinew
removed) with chimichurri, grilling it rare and serving it thinly
sliced with a jicama, chilli and lime salad.

I'll also be flame-grilling black pig belly marinated with
orange liqueur, lemongrass, and caramel, serving it with herb salad
and green dragon chilli sauce in a focaccia. For dessert it'll be
grilled finger bananas on skewers with palm sugar syrup and durian
ice-cream.

26Vince
La Montagna, Vincenzo's Cucina Vera, AdelaideSummer! I'm looking forward to a day of dry-aged chital venison
loin chops with juniper salt ash-grilled on olive branches and
finished with fresh thyme and a drizzle of aged balsamic. Perhaps
before the venison, some local Gulf St Vincent king prawns skewered
with rosemary cuttings and wrapped in my house-cured black pig
pancetta. I'll roast them over hot ash with extra-virgin olive oil,
sea salt and maybe a squeeze of citrus.

27Lauren Murdoch, Bistro Felix, SydneyI'm going to be grilling cuttlefish and tossing it with some
anchovies, chilli, garlic, sherry vinegar, lots of parsley and
rocket and a good olive oil.

28Alla Wolf-Tasker, Lake House, DaylesfordI'll be barbecuing flapping fresh trout from just down the
road. It's wonderful with a smear of pesto in the cavity, a drizzle
of fruity local olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. Wrap it in
foil and whack it onto the barbie for around eight or 10 minutes.
Turn once, and it's ready when the dorsal fin pulls out easily.
I'll pair it with a salsa of roughly chopped very ripe local
heirloom tomatoes, a few caperberries and a robust dressing.

29Jeremy Strode, Bistrode, SydneyOn a lazy summer day Jane [Strode] and I will be wrapping whole
whiting in a parchment paper bag, adding fresh herbs, lemon and
olive oil and baking it on the barbie. Accompanied, of course, by a
glass of our favourite rosé.

30James Hird & Todd Garratt, Buzo, SydneyThrow cleaned mussels marinated in paprika and garlic and
parsley stalks onto the barbie's flat grill on raging heat then
deglaze generously with manzanilla sherry. Eat the mussels off the
grill as they open, and cool your palate and fingers with the
remaining ice-cold manzanilla.

A barbie for the Buzo crew involves paella: some Calasparra
rice, chorizo, mussels, onion and garlic, white wine simmered over
a wood fire. A glass of albariño and you're done. We also love to
throw beer-braised beef short ribs over the open flame, glazing
them with cooking liquor and sherry vinegar. With a longneck of
Reschs, they're gold.

31Dan
Hong, Lotus, SydneyI'll be slathering skate wings with sambal belacan, wrapping
them in foil and chucking them on the grill. Serve them with a
squeeze of lime and a cucumber and coriander salad.

So far this summer I've been grilling large slabs of Stockyard
sirloin rubbed with berbere, the Ethiopian spice mix, serving it
with toum and a piquillo, red onion and tomato salad.

33Mark McNamara, Appellation, MaranangaI'm all about flat-iron steaks (preferably wagyu) cut from the
oyster blade fillet, simply seasoned, grilled rare on a flat plate
and served with a salad of cannellini beans, flat-leaf parsley, a
little shallot and a good drizzle of new-season's olive oil.

34Guy Grossi, Grossi Florentino, MelbourneI've just finished my kitchen reno at home and the outside
barbie area is probably the highlight; it has a built-in woodfired
pizza oven. I'll be drinking chardonnay and marinating baby octopus
with chilli, garlic, lemon and parsley. Flame it quickly, and eat
it with some radicchio and crusty bread.

35Shinichi Maeda, Sake, BrisbaneI'll go fishing and I'll season the fillets of the bonito I
catch with salt and pepper, marinate them with sesame oil, then
lightly grill both sides - just enough to get some colour. I'll mix
together dark soy, finely chopped ginger, garlic and red chilli,
then cut the bonito into bite-sized pieces, drizzle them with the
sauce and some finely cut spring onion, and put some lime on the
side. Too easy!

I don't know anything easier than the traditional barbecue style
in my home town in Hokkaido. Just place a fresh fish fillet
(we use mackerel) on some foil, season it with sake or beer, and
top it with roughly cut summer vegetables such as spring onion,
cabbage, asparagus, okra or onion. Cover the fish and vegetables
with a mixture of white miso paste, roughly chopped ginger, garlic,
and chilli, fold the foil to seal and cook it on the barbie. For
dessert, mix white miso and sugar with enough water to make a sweet
dipping sauce. Cut fresh figs in half, dip them in the sauce then
grill on the barbie - just enough to add a warm and smoky flavour.
Squeeze lemon on top. You won't be able to stop at one.

36David Swain, Fino, WillungaThis summer my sons and I intend to chuck Japanese-inspired
skewers of eel and tommy ruff (aka Australian herrings) over hot
charcoal and then serve them with daikon, mustard greens and
homemade teriyaki sauce.

37Guillaume Brahimi, Guillaume at Bennelong,
SydneyLay out a large piece of foil, place a two-kilo piece of
snapper on top, then cover with olives, quartered fennel bulbs,
diced potatoes and tomatoes, a couple of bay leaves, a bunch each
of thyme and basil, a clove of garlic, salt and pepper, and finally
drizzle the snapper with olive oil before wrapping it and cooking
it on the grill over medium-high heat for 25 minutes. Enjoy it
washed down with a crisp Australian sauvignon blanc.

38Jacques Reymond, Jacques Reymond, MelbourneI take prawns with their shells left on and cover them with
palm oil, chilli, garlic and ginger and simply grill them on banana
leaves. For dessert I like halved figs, slightly salted and
peppered, grilled on the flat-top of the barbecue, then put in a
salad bowl with mint, coriander, crème de cassis, Muscat de
Beaumes-de-Venise and coffee granita.

I like a two-kilo piece of beef rump marinated with oyster
sauce, soy sauce, garlic, onion and bay leaves for half an hour
then cooked on a char-grill on a low heat for 45 minutes.

39James Privett, The Cut Bar & Grill,
SydneyHow about whole sardines gutted and stuffed with preserved
lemon and thyme, then wrapped in vine leaves and grilled till the
vine leaves go crisp and take on a flavour like fried capers? Serve
with extra-virgin olive oil, good bread and a ripe tomato,
radicchio and celery leaf salad.

A summer favourite of mine is marinating small squid in satay
spice paste, enough to just coat the squid, and cooking it briefly
over hot coals, serving it with an Asian-style coleslaw.

Split a whole organic chicken down its backbone and open it out,
rub oil, sea salt and lots of cracked black pepper over it and
place it skin-side down over the heat, then sit a baking tray with
a couple of bricks on top to flatten it out while it cooks. Looks
like road-kill, tastes divine.

43Shaun Presland, Sake, SydneyI'll be planking this summer. I soak 20cm x 40cm planks of
cedar (or whatever other timber smells good; untreated of course)
in water during the morning. I season gutted-and-scaled whole baby
trout with equal parts soy, sake and mirin for 20 minutes, then put
the fish on the planks ribs-side down with the belly sides splayed
to hold them up. I heat my Weber up with the coals piled in the
middle and put these fish-laden planks on either side of the coals
so the fish cook with indirect heat. Whack the lid on and give them
20 minutes. The wood imparts its flavour by heating up (reaching a
temperature just under the flame point), and the fish cooks
beautifully. The best thing about this dish is the plank goes
straight to the table from the barbie, with the addition of lemon
cheeks, a splash of soy and some grated daikon on the way. You can
throw some micro-herbs over the top if you feel that the world is
not green enough. In a perfect world, the planks are washed and
dried in the sun to be soaked and used another day. Oh, and wear
some tough oven mitts or have sturdy barbecue tongs at hand.

44Greg Doyle, Pier, SydneyI baste a nice piece of tuna with chermoula, grill it on the
barbecue, and serve it with a salad of raw zucchini, red cabbage
and chervil dressed with white balsamic. For dessert I dust freshly
sliced pineapple and peach halves with icing sugar and grill them
on the barbie until they're caramelised. I put a big dollop of
vanilla ice-cream on top, and another dusting of icing sugar, and
splash them with Campari to add a bit of zing.

45Russell Blaikie, Must Winebar, Perth; Must Margaret
River, Margaret RiverI do a summer stint every year at Must Margaret River. I stay
with my family at a fabulous beach shack in Prevelly where I perch
a large paella pan over the burners of the barbie to make a seafood
paella that is shared (along with large quantities of serious wine)
with about 20 friends. The backyard cricket always gets a little
competitive around sundown.

I'll be sprinkling baharat spice on a boned and butterflied leg
of David Hohnen's free-range Arkady lamb to put on the beach-house
barbecue at Prevelly (while I'm working at Must Margaret River)
accompanied by hordes of local friends and large quantities of
serious wine.

For dessert, what about bananas covered in sugar and grilled
until they're caramelised, served with ginger ice-cream and fresh
slices of dates?

47Eugenio Maiale, A Tavola and Omerta, SydneyThis summer at my place it's all about luganega, the coiled
Italian pork, fennel and orange sausage, cooked on my custom grill.
The fat drips down onto the hot embers and returns in the form of
smoke to flavour it - it goes great with radicchio and mustard
pear. Of course, this all has to be done with an Italian beer in
one hand.

48Michael Ryan,
Provenance, BeechworthMy partner Jeanette recently bought me a Japanese konro grill
and some binchotan charcoal, so we've been doing some yakitori,
home-style. I love using the konro - such an even, gentle, radiant
heat. My favourite? Chicken skin. How can something so wrong be so
right? It's just chicken skin on skewers, grilled slowly over some
fine charcoal with some salt, some beer. Love it.

Grilled corn: soak the corn, still in its husk, in cold water
for an hour. Put it on the grill and cook it for about half an hour
or until the husks start to colour. Serve with butter of course,
maybe even some sort of fancy compound butter.

49Nick Holloway, Nu Nu, Palm CoveFamily faves would have to be big fat prawns, heads off, tails
on, peeled and skewered, grilled over flame until just cooked and a
bit smoky, then rolled in floral honey, fresh za'atar and lime
juice while they're still sizzling.

50Daniel
Wilson, Huxtable, MelbourneI'll be grilling pork chops and topping them with a salad of
thinly sliced pickled white peaches, witlof and shiso, dressed with
a hazelnut vinaigrette.

I'll also be rubbing skate with Malaysian curry paste, slapping
it on the barbie then squeezing a lime over it and serving it with
a wilted beanshoot and grated coconut sambal. I'll also be dusting
fresh pineapple rings with chilli salt and then grilling them and
topping them with a salad of prawns, pomelo, mint, lime and cashew
nuts.

51Martin Benn, Sepia, SydneySplit some large marron, brush them with salty miso butter,
cook them shell-side down on the bars, and keep basting them with
the butter until the flesh is just cooked and translucent. Finish
with fresh lime juice and a sprinkle of chives. Finger-licking
good.

53Alfie Spina,
Ash St Cellar, SydneyI'll be inviting the family over for an Italian Sunday
barbecue. I'll be roasting capsicums on the open fire, and topping
them with roasted tomato, anchovy and pangrattato.

I'll also be barbecuing wagyu rump-caps and serving them with
rosemary roasted potatoes and salmoriglio, and doing marinated pork
skewers with white beans and anchovy dressing.

54Alistair Wise, Sweet Envy, HobartOn the sweet side, we'll probably roast some peaches on the
flat plate, maybe with some rapadura sugar for a little more
shizzle, with loads of mint jelly, and a beer and raspberry
sorbet.

The only thing I want in summer is meat: short-cut beef ribs
marinated in beer and then dry-rubbed and slow-cooked on the grill
with plenty of smoke. It has to have our mandatory barbecue sauce
slathered all over the ribs to soften some of those crisp bits
before you begin to gnaw at the bone. We only bother to make the
sauce once the peaches and tomatoes are good, doing one huge pot to
last the year (and to bribe a few people who like it enough to part
with their brews for the meat component).

56Scott Minervini, Lebrina, HobartIn my downtime I'm making thick pork and fennel sausages with
chunky cubes of back fat that slowly melt into the meat over a slow
barbecue - good with barbecued potatoes and wilted silverbeet.

57Nobuyuki Ura, Sushi E, SydneyWhat do I put on the barbie? Fresh lobster with a ginger and
spring onion sauce, and richly marbled wagyu beef with a miso and
soy sauce.

58Thomas Lim, Duke Bistro,
SydneyI'll be keeping it magical by rubbing my skate wings with ras
el hanout and char-grilling them with some scampi on the half
shell, then dressing both in some spiced-tea butter while drowning
myself in a few G & Ts. Living is grilling.

59Tetsuya Wakuda, Tetsuya's, SydneyI was recently at a winery in Tasmania where the winemaker also
happened to be a diver and had some very fresh lobsters. We cut
them in half, painted them with a little olive oil and put them on
the hot grill shell-side down. When you smell the shell starting to
burn - that crustacean smell - you tent them with some foil.
Another two minutes and they'll be cooked perfectly. Take them off,
put them on a plate with a small amount of salt and pepper, some
lemon juice and some olive oil and they're done. It's the easiest
thing ever, and so succulent.

61Josh Emett, Maze,
MelbourneI'll be caramelising a peeled whole pineapple, basting it with
sweetened rum and vanilla bean as it cooks, and serving it with
coconut ice-cream.

I like to grill garlic, chilli and parsley-slathered skewered
king prawns quickly and then serve them with a salad of avocado and
mango. Or halved quails marinated overnight in honey, soy and
ginger, slow-roasted pink and served with light salad and plenty of
spring onions.

Grilled gently on my barbie will be fantastic local green and
white asparagus, enriched with hollandaise and served as a decadent
starter. And I'm thinking amazing coloured baby peppers, blackened
whole, finished with olive oil and rock salt and eaten with a
large steak.

62Martin Boetz, Longrain, Sydney &
MelbourneI'll be poaching chicken Marylands in coconut cream flavoured
with a little palm sugar and fish sauce, lemongrass and lime leaves
for 20 minutes. I let them cool then grill them until they're
golden and caramelised, and reduce the poaching liquid to use as a
sauce with lime wedges on the side. I also grill small egg bananas
- the small, sweet Thai variety - until they burst, then drizzle
them with palm sugar syrup and coconut cream.

Max Allen's hot barbecue drinking

Reading through this extraordinary list of grilling suggestions,
some obvious themes emerge. Stock up on a few bottles of each of
these wine and beer styles and you'll be set for almost every
barbecue eventuality.

Pale, dry rosé
Thank goodness for the ever-increasing number of refreshing,
food-friendly Provençal-style rosés now being made across
Australia: this is my default barbecue wine because it goes with
almost everything from salads to seafood to chicken to grilled
vegies.

Riesling (young and old) A thrillingly zesty, crisp Australian riesling is exactly
what you need for many of these Asian-inspired fish dishes; those
with plenty of soy and miso would love to be partnered with a
riesling (or semillon or marsanne) with a few years' bottle
age.

Southern Italian white varietals
The crisp, dry, minerally tang of a good vermentino or fiano would
go down a treat with the simple Med-flavoured fish and vegie dishes
here.

Tempranillo/grenacheSome cool bottles of young, unwooded tempranillo or
grenache with supple tannins, plenty of fruit and some spice are a
must for spicy sausages and Middle Eastern-inspired dishes.

MoscatoQuite a few of the chefs obviously have quite a sweet
spot, so to go with all that caramelised pineapple and grilled
panettone chill some fun, fresh, sherbety moscato.

Pale aleWhether you go for the North American (sweet sticky ribs)
or South American (chimichurri steak) option, big hunks of grilled
meat need cold bottles of pale ale.

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